Strictly Confidential

Ponyville, an Innocent town full of carefree, happy, colourful ponies that spend their days enjoying life, and spending time together. Peaceful and quiet to the newer of residents, but a disaster zone to those who’ve been there long enough to notice all the major troubling events that have occurred in the town. Often enough large scale disasters had been handled solely by the legendary elements of harmony. Many that had ever threatened the peaceful town had been defeated by them in some way or another, but they can’t always be around to stop every disaster; including small scale ones like robbery, assault, or vandalism. That’s where M.A.N.T.I.C.O.R.E comes in.

Militarised Agency Nationalised Towards Intercepting Criminal Offenders Rebelling in Equestria; a secret organisation set in multiple bases among Equestrian landmarks. They sit below the towns and those with the qualifications to be amongst the ranks of their agents are quietly taken from their homes, interviewed, and trained to become secret agents, or as some would call them, spies. Those who choose not to join with the agency have one hour of their memory wiped and are returned to their previous locations. Those who are implemented into the organisation are bound by a code to ensure they follow orders without question and keep the agency a secret. Failure to abide by the code would result in very severe consequences, in some cases, death.

Due to the nature of their job, most of the agents, if not all of them, tended to not become too attached or make bonds with others, and rather chose field work over office work in order to avoid social scenarios. The majority of field jobs just involved undercover patrols, and if trouble arose, they could intervene and try and stop it, but if they couldn’t stop trouble from developing, they could arrest the perpetrators, even if that meant using brute force to do so. Other field jobs needed more qualified agents with the stomach to do some dirty work, ranging from doing whatever it takes to extract information from and apprehend a target for as long as necessary, to even assassinating targets; Though jobs like that rarely sprung up.

When initiated, Manticore set up bases primarily underground in most locations, creating easier means of potential agents to travel between their homes and nearest base through underground access tunnels built into household objects. Although agency leaders see it as a rather risky approach to allow their agents simple access to the base, with the increase of crime and the need to distribute more field assignments, they had to think of easier and faster, but safe ways to travel between their homes and work.

With so many ponies now being involved in field work it wasn’t uncommon for them to mistake another agent as a criminal citizen while they were apprehending a real criminal, which led to the agency having to fire several agents to maintain some control, most of which were never seen in their respective hometowns again. Most agents just assumed upon being discharged from service the agency would order them to take residence in another town in order to make sure they’d have no further contact with relatives and friends that they could potentially reveal any information about the organisation to.

Not all ponies are removed by the agency by order however, and instead request to leave on the same conditions as the other agents that are forcefully removed, however as they are not being removed by request they are not given the same privileges as those discharged, which would mean nothing could being provided for them at their new designation, and that they had to rely on their own income; this option was only ever followed through by agents who couldn’t handle the job, or didn’t have a strong stomach for the more gruesome jobs.

It is still unknown how or why Manticore was created, nor who the original founder was, and for an unknown reason, the leaders of the agency preferred to keep it that way, drowning out as much interest in the topic among agents as possible, but this often led others to become more curious as to why they were trying so hard to keep it a secret, but the agency quickly picked up on agents investigating further and dealt with them personally. Although they didn’t catch every pony with an interest, and that led them to discover more than they were safely allowed to know, and if they were to be discovered, would put their own life and the lives of their friends in jeopardy.

***

Two houses in Ponyville, in almost perfect unison, buzzed to life with morning alarms coming from bedside tables. For a few seconds nothing happened, until in both households, hooves reached out from under the blankets to turn off the alarms, one Aquamarine in colour and the other a light creamy colour. They pressed down on the top off their alarm clocks, almost hard enough to break them, clearly out of frustration. Both figures rolled over under their blankets, attempting to get just a few more minutes of sweet sleep, before the alarms burst to life a second time, forcing them to sigh, throw off their blankets and sit up, before rubbing their bloodshot eyes and turning the alarms off again.

Lyra and Bon Bon both slipped out of their respective beds, a little shaky while still waking up, before both letting out a yawn, and walking out of their bedrooms to face the light of another morning. As the sun shone on their eyes from their open windows they flinched and shunned their eyes momentarily, before again walking forward and sighing. Upon reaching their kitchens, Lyra walked towards her fridge, while Bon Bon walked towards some appliances on her bench, flicking on her automatic coffee making machine. Lyra opened the fridge and surveyed its few contents, shrugging and pulling out a donut from a box of assorted flavours before walking to her table and sitting down to eat it, while Bon Bon walked towards her food cupboard, pulling out a bag of some sort of trail mix, filled with a variety of different flowers, grains, and hay clippings.

While Lyra ate her donut slowly she dug a small groove into the wood of her table, as if waiting for something to happen, while Bon Bon pulled out a travel mug on the signal from her coffee machines completion, which poured into a small jug under the machine, which Bon Bon then transferred to the travel mug. She took a quick sip before sitting it down next to her mix, and walking over the entrance to her lounge room, where she picked up her saddlebag and made her way back to her kitchen bench.

Lyra took the last bite of her donut before looking at the clock on her wall, and watching as the second clock ticked down the last few seconds to 6:30.

“Well... duty calls...” she said, getting up and starting to walk over to her own lounge room, and stopping in front of her main couch.

Bon Bon had just put her food and coffee into her saddlebag, and tightened it around her body before looking at her own clock to see it strike 6:30. She let out another sigh.

“Well... Time for work...” She said before turning around to look at her sink.

Lyra moved her hoof to the side of the couch, feeling the front of the arm rest, before finding a seal, and opening it. Behind it rested a blue button, which she pressed, causing a small clatter of noise inside the couch, sounding like machinery rotating and clanking together, before the middle of the couch sprung up with a puff of steam, and a large pod popped out and opened for her.

Bon Bon opened the doors under her sink, only to find a bunch of pipes though to direct the drains around.

“Oh, silly me...” She said with a small giggle before closing the doors. She reached up to her faucet and turned it all the way around, until she heard it click, before turning it back.

After a short clatter of noise sounding similar to that of metal banging together, she opened the sink cupboard again to find a steel platform was there instead of the original group of pipes.  Bon Bon grinned, stepping onto the platform, and closing the door to become surrounded in darkness, before small lights illuminated the cupboard below her on each corner of the platform, as it began to lower like an elevator.

Lyra stepped into her own pod, closing the door and sealing herself in, and with another hiss of steam from outside the pod, it began to descend into the couch and below, before the couch cushion closed back over the top and the pod illuminated with a blue light.

Both transports seem to take equally as long as the other in terms of travel speed, but it was only a matter of minutes before the pod and platform stopped moving and the lights illuminating them faded, leaving them in complete darkness. Out of nowhere only seconds later, automatic doors, fashioned much like garage doors opened upward, to reveal a bright white light, warming them up as it passed over their cool bodies. As the doors opened all the way, Lyra’s pod popped open with a hiss of steam, allowing her to extend her hooves and jump out, before giving a light stretch.

Further down past a row of more home/base transport destinations, Bon Bon walked out of her own transport, looking around a little, before turning left and making her way to her own office. Lyra on the other hand, walked forward, into the vast facility that was, MANTICORE.